A Matter of Choice
by 1note
Summary: Mythbusters fic starring everybody's favorite crash test dummy! Buster POV.


**A/N:** Okay, I admit it. This is a silly idea for a story. I was watching a Mythbusters DVD and saw the episode where they rebuilt and improved Buster. I found it touching. It would've been quicker and cheaper and required a lot less effort if they'd just bought a new dummy, but instead they stuck with good ol' Buster. What can I say, I have this weird tendency to form sentimental attachments to inanimate objects. I'm sure a qualified therapist could explain it all to me (probably by blaming my parents in some way), but I'm not about to let anyone rummage around in my subconscious for five hundreds bucks an hour, thank you very much. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna ask my stuffed animals for a pep talk.

P.S. Pretty much all of the dialog is taken from the Mythbusters episodes "Exploding Toilet" and "Cooling a Six-Pack."

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**Disclaimer: I do not own Mythbusters, as they are real people and slavery is illegal. My apologies to Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, Scottie Chapman, and Kari Byron if they are in any way annoyed by my presumptuousness in using them in this story. I didn't make anything up when it came to you guys, so please don't sue me!**

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I am not alive. I do not experience pain or fear, sentiment or joy. I have neither a voice, nor the desire to speak. I am a thing built for a purpose; to be put in dangerous situations so that the fragile humans I resemble can learn new ways of preventing their own untimely demise should they ever lose control of their vehicles. There are far less noble reasons for one to exist.

If a crash test dummy can be said to fear anything, it is outliving its usefulness. Better to be crushed and mangled into oblivion rather than added to the piles of ancient equipment left to slowly rot. But like my creation, my exit from this world has never been a matter of choice. I was built too well. Time and again I am subjected to simulated car accidents only to come away moderately unscathed. I survive to see the technology advance so that I am soon rendered obsolete. It seems I am destined for the dreaded junk pile.

I am taken down from my rack for the last time. My jointed limbs are detached from my torso. What puzzles me—if a dummy can be puzzled—is that my plastic skin is thoroughly cleaned. Why bother if I'm to be relegated to a landfill? When my flesh-colored exterior is pristine, I and my limbs are arranged in a large cardboard box and sealed within. Lying in darkness, I hear the muted scritch of unrolling packing tape, then feel myself lifted and jostled.

Dummies do not sleep. In my cardboard casket I experience the long hours of my mysterious delivery. The murmurs of bored couriers, the rumble and vibration of large vehicles (which strangely do not crash), then I am finally lifted, shoved, and placed on a motionless surface. Two new voices tinged with excitement, and then the tape is slit and the box's flaps are pulled aside. I am bathed in harsh fluorescent light. Above me, peering down, are the faces of two of the oddest men I've ever encountered. Their only obvious similarity is that they both wear eyeglasses. One of them is endowed with a luxuriant mustache which all but conceals his mouth. In contrast to the thriving facial hair, his head—what I can see of it that isn't concealed under his black beret (the first and so far only one I've ever seen anyone wear)—is completely bald. The other man has short red hair and a goatee. His pale skin is liberally dusted with freckles, and his mouth is split into a broad, toothy grin.

"Oh, wow!"

Eager hands grab me, lift me from the box. I see that I am in some kind of warehouse filled with all sorts of machinery and clutter. I also see that there are other people here, wielding cameras and sound equipment—such items having been used often during my crash simulations. All lenses and mics are focused on the first two men and, by consequence of proximity, myself. If I were capable of confusion, I would be wondering where on earth I've been sent.

My new owners, whose names I quickly learn are Jamie and Adam, reattach my limbs and spend the next several minutes examining me with the enthusiasm of children with a new toy. They peel back the plastic skin of my back to marvel at the array of outdated sensors nestled amongst the metal bones. They maneuver me into a variety of silly poses, Adam laughing uproariously, Jamie more subdued, but no less amused. Finally, they sit me in a chair and Adam seats himself on my lap, one arm thrown across my shoulders.

"We should think of a name for him."

Jamie, standing with his hands on his hips and a thoughtful gleam in his eyes, suggests, "How about Buster?"

I have no emotion. I cannot feel pleasure in having a name of my own, nor relief that my purpose shall continue, though drastically altered from before. This difference is brought home to me as for my first experiment I am placed upon a toilet inside a large transparent chamber made of bullet-proof material and a small explosion is set off beneath me.

"He's still holding the cigarette!" Adam laughs in the smoky aftermath.

Whatever can be said of my time with the Mythbusters, it certainly can't be described as boring. I am flung from tall heights, submerged in water, incinerated, exploded, dismembered. Plastic flesh tears and burns, aluminum bones shatter. I am repaired and patched again and again, but the constant barrage takes its toll. My metal and plastic body was never designed for such extremes. Soon I must resign myself to the fact that my postponed end will come around; truly, it's amazing that it hasn't happened sooner. Adam and Jamie could have saved themselves many hours of time-consuming effort by simply purchasing a replacement dummy, but have shown reluctance to do so. If I didn't know better, I would call it sentiment. It would be easy to assume such a thing, if a dummy could make assumptions: I have a name. Adam, Jamie, and the other teammates who join them always refer to me as "him" rather than "it." They laugh over my antics, which typically involve flying apart, then commiserate as they repair me. They talk to me as if I am alive.

"Way to take one for the team, Buster!" "Poor Buster, you lost another arm." "You're such a trooper, Buster."

Years ago, while I was being prepared for yet another crash test, two of the technicians had a conversation over something called "magical thinking," which one of them learned of in some sort of documentary. Apparently, it is the ability to attribute living thoughts and spirits to inanimate objects. It is something which is common amongst young children, but as they grow older and their elders' mindsets are imposed upon them, the ability is lost and chalked up to imagination. To someone with magical thinking, all things have personality; the older an object is and the more it is handled, the more personality it acquires. The more alive it becomes. If one can believe such nonsense.

It seems my time has come. Jamie hoists me up and carries me to the gurney they use whenever they transport me to the next experiment. But I know there is no experiment this time; they've all said I cannot last through any more devastation. If I had a voice, I would tell them I'd rather be blown to smithereens than taken to the scrapheap, but it is not my decision. Jamie begins stripping away my charred plastic flesh, exposing the battle-scarred metal and plastic skeleton underneath. Perhaps they plan to recycle some of my components. They are known for doing that. Even if a dummy could feel troubled by such a concept, I wouldn't mind them reusing parts of me. At least I would know that they are serving a useful purpose. When Jamie starts taking measurements, it only seems to confirm my assumption. But then he walks away and moments later I hear the familiar whirr and growl of precision machinery. What on earth is he up to? Whatever it is, it takes a very long time. Two days later Adam comes. He disassembles me piece by piece, tossing most of the parts aside until they form a sloppy discard pile. But some of me—feet, hands, head—he carries to a worktable. Waiting there is a stack of gleaming metal parts.

"We're gonna make you good as new, Buster."

They have made me a new skeleton of heavy aluminum blocks: a pillar of a spine, thick ribs, square joints. They have also made "bones" of poplar wood for my arms and legs to better simulate human injuries during violent experiments (which would be all of them). Adam fits everything together like a large jigsaw puzzle, adding my old parts to the new skeleton last of all so that I might imbue this new structure with my essential self.

When he finishes putting me together, Adam calls Jamie over. "Check this out."

The other Mythbuster approaches and stands beside his partner, chuckling over my newly assembled skeleton reclining on the worktable as if asleep. Adam is unusually subdued, not laughing and jumping about as I would expect from the normally animated man. Instead, he gives a sigh of accomplishment and declares, "That's not bad for two days' work."

"Yeah," Jamie nods, "That's actually quite beautiful, I think."

If my eyes were not plastic, they would be weeping in gratitude. But my resurrection does not end here. Adam sculpts new arms, legs, and torso for my body out of foam and uses them to create molds into which Jamie pours a silicon-based rubber-like substance which he calls dragon skin. It is flexible, fleshy, and far more resilient than my old plastic and foam covering. My aluminum and poplar wood skeleton is soon encased in thick, impermeable flesh which makes my feet, hands, and head seem all the more horrific for their battered and scarred appearance. A rubbery pink Frankenstein's monster, as someone describes it. The two men gaze down on me as I lie on the gurney, admiring their handiwork.

"I still feel really bad that we haven't had time to fix his face," Jamie says in his typical understated monotone.

Adam stares at him in disbelief. "You still don't get it, do you?"

Jamie blinks. "Get what?"

Adam points to my battle-scarred face. "He's _Buster_. This is the throughput from _old_ Buster," he then pats my pristine torso, "to _new_ Buster."

Mild bickering ensues; behavior which I've come to expect from these two.

"He looks like a burn victim," Jamie complains, resting a meaty hand on this offensive visage, "I thought it would be nice to have a real face with him. We _are_ going to replace this—"

"No, we're not," Adam interjects.

"Yes, we are," Jamie insists, though his tone doesn't change. It seldom does.

But Adam will not concede. "No, we're _not_."

He is quite adamant about this, and Jamie can see that there is no winning this argument. "Well," he grumbles, "it looks like crap. But if that's what makes you happy, then I don't care." These last words are mumbled as he walks away. One would almost think he's sulking.

My unattractive head is equipped with a metal ring which they use to hang me up while they dress me in crisp new orange coveralls and show me off to the camera crew. Buster 2.0, they call me. Jamie and Adam each stand proudly beside my hanging form and talk of my improvements, how much more durable and easily repaired I am, how much better I will work for future experiments.

"A good, viable Mythbusters dummy," Adam says, patting my new chest for emphasis.

I am no longer an outdated crash test dummy; I'm a Mythbusters dummy. There is hardly any time to adjust to all this when I am loaded into the van and taken out to the latest experiment where my new body is to be broken in. Literally. Ironically, the task is to crash an old car. More in keeping with the Mythbusters' style, the car is to be dangled front end-down from a tall crane and dropped with me inside it. It is an old black Cadillac that was donated some time ago by a fan of the show. The car even has a name: Earl. Why do humans feel the need to name things which aren't even alive?

I am lifted from the gurney and placed into the driver's seat. There is a feeling of momentousness in the air; a fan is about to witness his old clunker destroyed on national television while my new body is ushered into a lifetime of grand abuse in the name of science. If I were alive, I would be excited. As it is, my living teammates fairly burst with unmitigated glee. The ladies are particularly whimsical, gathering wildflowers and weaving them into a messy circlet which is then placed atop my head. As Earl and I are about to be lifted by the crane, Kari and Scottie affectionately wish me luck.

"Goodbye, guy," Kari says, patting my flower-bedecked head, then kissing her hand and pressing it to my cheek, "Be seeing ya."

Scottie gently places my gnarled hand on the steering wheel. "Keep your eyes on the road."

Everyone beams at me through the windshield, excited yet somber. My future shall be determined in this test run, depending on whether or not my new body holds up. The crane rumbles to life and I am lifted sixty feet above the ground, facing down towards the pavement, swaying gently from the chain. I could say that I feel at home in the front seat of this old Cadillac, if I were capable of feeling. My existence has now come full circle. Far below, I hear Jamie and Adam chant the familiar countdown. "And three…two…one!"

The quick-release is sprung. Earl and I plummet towards the ground. The force of momentum pulls my loose arms back in a parody of flight. And then the old familiar crunch and groan of tortured metal and shattering glass as Earl's front smashes into the asphalt. For a brief instant the car stands on end, then topples over, upside down. The compacted roof pushes my head into what for a living person would be a very uncomfortable angle. It is a spectacular wreck, judging from the laughter and whoops coming from the gathered Mythbusters. Once they calm down a little, they hurry to pull me out of the ruined Cadillac and examine me. Everything has worked as they designed it; the wooden bones have (not surprisingly) snapped from the impact while the metal components remain largely intact. The limbs which came off in the fall are easily reattached. Gathered around me as I lie on the gurney, I can see that the team is pleased.

"Well," Adam declares happily, "I think he's passed the car crash test and he's ready for a lifetime of busting myths."

Jamie grins. "A whole world of pain." Adam, predictably, laughs at his friend's statement.

As they wheel me away, Scottie suddenly asks, "How many lives is Buster gonna have, anyway?"

Adam's response is flippant, playful, and fills me with joy (if a dummy could feel joy, that is). "How many episodes are we gonna do?"

I am not alive. How I am put to use has never been a matter of choice. But if I was able to decide between continuing on as a crash test dummy and being a Mythbusters dummy, it is no choice at all. I would rather be a teammate than a tool, a mascot than a machine. I have a name, I have a purpose, and no matter how many times I'm blown apart I know that I will always be put back together. There'll be no scrapheap for me.

"Get ready, Buster!"

If I had a voice…

"Fire in the hole!"

…I would tell everyone…

"And three…two…"

…that I am the luckiest damned dummy in the world.

"…one!"


End file.
